Jakarta. Digital transactions at four major e-commerce sites in Indonesia would double to $29 billion this year from $14 billion last year, reflecting an encouraging trend of the digital payment adoption in the country, according to a study from Bank Indonesia, the country central bank. 

"Amid a contracted economy due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the development of digital technology has opened new opportunities to encourage economic growth," Filianingsih Hendarta, the governor assistant and the head of payment system policy department at Bank Indonesia, said in a discussion at BeritaSatu TV on Thursday. 

Filianingsih said the central bank projected  Indonesia's four largest e-commerce would saw Rp 429 trillion ($29 billion) in a transaction this year, more than double the total transaction value of Rp 201 trillion last year. Filianingsih did not reveal the e-commerce sites.

A separate study from Hamburg-based research company Statista put Shoppee at the most popular e-commerce site in Indonesia with over 71 million clicks per month in the first quarter this year, ahead of Softbank-backed Tokopedia with 70 million clicks, Bukalapak with 38 million clicks and Lazada Indonesia with 24 million clicks.

More customers today make online purchases amid movement restrictions put in place by the government to curb the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, and that has encouraged more people to adopt digital payment services, Filianingsih said.

The digital payment, like Ovo, GoPay, Dana, and LinkAja, accounted for 90 percent of all electronic transactions in the first five months this year of Rp 15 trillion. Banks' electronic payment accounted for the remainder. 

Digital payment also started to gain traction among Indonesia's small and medium-sized enterprises, thanks to Bank Indonesia's Quick Response Indonesian Standard (QRIS). The standard allowed them to use Indonesia's diverse digital payment networks without having to invest in expensive specialized hardware. 

Filianingsih said 4.12 million merchants in Indonesia had implemented the standard since it was released seven months ago. 

Ikhsan Ramdan, the chief financial officer at Fintek Karya Nusantara (Finarya), the company behind LinkAja, said all merchants in Indonesia would adopt QRIS in the next two or three years. 

"We agree that QRIS is the most efficient. With QRIS, we can conduct transactions across different digital payment apps," Ikhsan said. 

Vincent Iswara, the chief executive officer at Dana, said the digital payment service providers, together with banks and the government, need to improve promotion efforts to introduce the digital payment to more SMEs. 

"We need to more dissemination of information from fintech players. The potential is still large among more than 62 million SMEs in the country," Vincent said.